Comments

'And finally, not everyone’s being doing topical. In fact, here’s the rather lovely 6 Oxgangs Avenue devoted to the history of the development of the area, this week highlighting how the block of flats came into being. Could have been prompted by Who do you think you are? Or just a timely reminder that not everything worth blogging about is in the here and now.'

Kate Higgins, Scottish Roundup 26/08/2012



Monday 24 December 2018

An Edinburgh 1960s Christmas Day



Christmas Day was rather like Sundays, only quieter.


We saw very little of what went on in the rest of the Stair because our grandfather would collect us all mid-morning in his large Ford Zephyr car, with its leather bench seats and drive us all down to Portobello for the day, not returning us back home to Oxgangs until late in the evening.

We always spent the whole day at our grandparents’ home at Durham Road, Portobello.

I therefore have no intimate knowledge of how the Swansons; the Stewarts; the Hoggs; the Smiths; the Blades; the Hanlons; or the Duffys spent their Christmas Day.


However, Christmas Day is the most popular church day of the year, so I could surmise that the Swansons probably attended Colinton Mains Parish Church of Scotland; meanwhile, the Blades will have gone along to one of the Baptist churches; whilst the Duffys will have celebrated Christ’s birth at St Marks Roman Catholic Church, Oxgangs Avenue.


St Mark's RC Church

The drive from Oxgangs down to Portobello from the Stair was always the quietest of the whole year.

Sundays were normally quiet, but on Christmas Day there were even fewer cars on the road and we just sailed down as if we were the Royal Family.

Reverend Walker Skating Duddingston Loch, Henry Raeburn

We drove through Greenbank, Morningside and along Grange Road and on through the Queen’s Park passing Duddingston Loch on the right, always looking out for the skating minister as we assumed it was his home!

On the bad bend outside the 12th century Duddingston Kirk our grandfather always blared the car’s horn loudly, impishly hoping it was midway through the chaplain’s sermon.



12th century, Duddingston Kirk

We then wended our way down to Nana’s and the excitement of turning right at the foot of Durham Road with its fine small Edwardian mansion-houses.


It was our grandmother who made Christmas the day that it was. She would be there on the doorstep to greet and welcome us into the hallway and we would give her a formal light kiss on the cheek.

Although she loved us all very dearly, she wasn't effusive and instead had more of the demeanour of a conservative English gentlewoman’s restraint. Instead she expressed her great love for family and many others through innumerable acts of kindness over the years and the decades.

The hall looked resplendent. There would be a flower arrangement on a dark antique table and for once the royal blue carpet had been hoovered clean. As a busy artist, jeweller, pottery decorator, lace-woman and gardener our grandmother didn't want to be remembered for dusting the house; instead she had far more important priorities, but Christmas was an exception.


And, because her house resembled the Old Curiosity Shop, full of fascinating antiques and interesting items from throughout the world, the hall really didn't need any Christmas décor. Although, I suppose one could have hung some tinsel from the African buffalo's antlers high on one wall!

In later years I lived there from the winter of 1972 and whenever I invited a friend, a colleague or a journalist into her front room, their first comment on entering was always ‘What a fascinating room this is!’


Apart from the tiny kitchen, her house was perfect to host the large Christmas gatherings which took place there for over half a century.

The hatch linking the kitchen to the sitting room was a clever little idea.

As the kitchen had no work space or work tops at all, the Buchan's pottery casseroles containing hot vegetables were placed there and also delicately balanced on top of the old washing machine.

Grandma Jo had the most wonderful grace under pressure; I never saw her get flustered.

Indeed, when I think about it, I never recall her raising her voice in all the subsequent years that I stayed with her.

The only hint of any colourful language emanating from the kitchen would be from Father working hard as he whipped the cream by hand.

Our grandmother served up those wonderful Christmas dinners through the magic little hatch, year in and year out, until she was well into her eighties, when I took over hosting Christmas as the Laird 'o Plewlands; then at West Mill, Colinton; and for a few years at Moorlands, Dingwall.

The first course was usually home-made soup.

This was followed by the traditional roast turkey; mashed and roasted potatoes; various vegetables; and two types of stuffing-sage and onion and sausage-meat, with gravy.

And despite being a butcher, our grandfather never carved the bird and instead that too was also left to our grandmother; she was very much the matriarch.

The dining table was lovely to behold.

With the eye of the trained artist, the table was laid out with colourful antiques and glassware.

It looked like something out of a Dickens novel.

There would also be beer, lemonade and as we children got older, the excitement of having some Woodpeckers Cider too.

Around the table the craic was good; some teasing-some wit-some awful jokes-pulling crackers and several of us cajoling our grandmother to ‘Come on through Josephine and enjoy your dinner too!’ 

Atypically, she was always the last to take a seat at the table and join the extended family.

There were various puddings-trifles, a mix of milk and water jellies and single, double and whipped cream. However, before we could face our pudding, we children would often go outside into the winter air and stroll around the back garden to help regain our appetites.

'The Wonderful Pudding' Sol Eytinge, Jr.

Grandma Jo always prepared a home-made Christmas plum pudding and we children would ‘ooh and aah’ when the brandy was poured on top of it and lit. The flame puffed up almost taking our eyebrows off.


To accompany the pudding there was both custard and ice cream, the latter coming from either the wonderful Arcari's, Portobello or Lucas, Musselburgh, Italian ice cream shops which served Edinburgh residents so well over the years. 

Eddie Arcari
Because of the large number of people around the old dining table-the very young; the young; adults; the middle aged; the old; and the very old, these occasions were quite magical throughout the decade of the 1960s.

Christmas Dinner, Peter Hoffmann

The age range of those sitting around the table covered approximately ninety years, thus stretching back to when Queen Victoria was on the throne.


Sometimes there would be a dozen or so of us present.

Was it Old Aunt Mary or our great-grandmother, Wee Nana, who always said ‘Now, Josephine...where's the silver spoon...you know I can't possibly eat my pudding without it!’ 

And, when I was very young, her husband, the miser aka Pumpa (our great-grandfather) tried to slip me a penny, which I turned down-much to his amusement!

Once Christmas Dinner was over and before the Queen came on the television to broadcast to the nation, the adults would retire gratefully to various rooms throughout the house to allow their food to digest.


Mother would enjoy a snooze in one of the bedrooms, usually my grandmother’s south facing room, which always had a very comforting and quiet feel to it.

Meanwhile, Aunt Heather would be in the kitchen with her sleeves rolled up, washing dishes in the sink, often with Father giving her a helping hand. Others would find a spot on a spare sofa, put their feet up and place their head on a soft cushion and shortly be happily asleep.


Meanwhile, we children might go out to the garden.

It was good to go out with Iain from the warmth of the house and in to the fresh cold air in the winter garden.

We enjoyed having a blether about our presents or kicking a ball around.

The bare winter December garden had a completely different feel to July when it was lush and adorned in its summer clothes.

In its hibernated state all that remained were the skeletons and structures of trees, hedges and shrubs.


And, as the afternoon coolness descended, and the light began to disappear, I enjoyed the quiet and solitude of the garden and the slightly brooding presence of the season.

All that separated the light from the dark, the cold from the warmth, was a solitary door. It made me think of some lines from Buchan’s The Power-House where the hero, Sir Edward Leithen is told: ‘You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn.’


And then, it was braw to go back into the warmth of the house and the bosom of the family and to be reminded once again, that it was still Christmas Day!

After the Queen's broadcast a highlight for me was to sit quietly in the smoking room at the front of the house. This was the front room, which was fascinating and relaxing to be in, because it was full of antiques, paintings, glassware, snuff bottles and old French clocks.

I sat on the big old sofa alongside my grandfather, whilst my great grandfather and father sat on the large squishy chairs opposite.


There was a large old gramophone come radio cabinet in the corner and a Christmas tree in the bay window.

It was here that the men retired to enjoy the home-made sweets which our grandmother made annually for Christmas-marzipan and walnuts; peppermint creams; fudge et al.

But most of all I liked when the men enjoyed a cigar. I loved the smell of the cigar smoke. It’s a smell which immediately transports me back through the mists of time.


I loved sitting quietly, listening to my great-grandfather, grandfather and father talking and conversing. I always kept very quiet and tried not to be intrusive in case I wasn't allowed to stay.

And, as the light began to slowly fade and darkness fell and the street-lights flickered on outside, we switched the Christmas tree lights on. The lights were a novelty as we didn’t have them back at The Stair at 6/2 Oxgangs Avenue.

In that room, surrounded by three older generations, I felt part of a line going back to Victorian times.


I also felt warm, secure and at peace.

I didn't want these moments to end and savoured the hour or two before someone would look around the door to say that ‘Tea was now being served up and would the men come through and join the rest of the party.’


We would all troop through to enjoy some fresh cut bread, salad and some John West salmon which was a luxury item back in the 1960s. There would also be a variety of shortbread, Christmas cake, mincemeat pies and for the gutsy perhaps seconds of trifle and cream.


By then a good fire was blazing in the grate and one of the nice things about Christmas Day compared to our Sunday visitations was that we got to stay on a little longer into the evening.

Our grandfather would give our great-grandparents a lift back home to London Road, Dalkeith, before then returning the seven or so miles back to Portobello to give the Hoffmanns a lift back home to Oxgangs Avenue and The Stair. 

On the way home to Oxgangs in the car, we would all snuggle up together to keep warm.  

However, unlike the journey down, which was taken in the eager anticipation of a family Christmas Day, moving towards its zenith in the bright winter sunshine, come the end of this most special of days, it was now appropriately dark, as Christmas began to die its death.

Now passing Duddingston Loch to our left, it was so black out, that we couldn’t really see the loch unless the moon was out and reflected upon its surface, dancing on the dark waters.


Duddingston Loch by Moonlight, Charles Lees

And this in contrast to a century before, when Robert Louis Stevenson enjoyed the season and wrote in the winter of 1874 of looking down upon the skaters on the frozen loch flitting around under the light from the moon and the lit torches.

Leaving the Queens Park, we children played a game to see who could count the most lit Christmas trees in sitting room windows along Grange Road, Morningside and Greenbank, before we descended into Oxgangs.

And then, of a sudden, we were back from where we’d started out.

It was of course a stark contrast coming home to the Stair and 6/2.

The house was quiet.

It was cold.

And the one bar electric fire would be immediately switched on.


However, it was slightly more inviting than usual, because the Christmas tree decorated the corner of the living room and we had the pleasure of coming back home to our presents.

Before going to bed I would carefully re-pack my stocking with my presents and place it at the end of my bed to try to recreate the Christmas morning experience when I awoke on Boxing Day.

However, it was never the same.

Tuesday 20 November 2018

The Go-Between






Saturday, 20th November, 1971 

Today was probably the best day of the year. 

Being a Saturday alone is cause to celebrate, but that was only for starters! 

I collected my pay from Pamela Baird - always a good moment. I just kind of glided through the paper round - the reason being that I was already looking forward and planning for my first 'official' date with Shona (Smith). 

We were going out to the cinema to see 'The Go-Between'. 


Being out early made for quite a long day, but it gave me plenty of time to plan ahead and get myself organised. I wanted to look my very best subject of course to the limitations of my haircut, which is the only cloud on the horizon. I wore my new pair of Levi's, my Ben Sherman shirt and my parka. 

I collected Shona from 26/5 Firhill Crescent and then we took a number 16 bus in to town. 


It was a really successful evening - better than I could have hoped for. 

Derek Cameron (Yerbury)

The film was really good, but I perhaps enjoyed it more than Shona. 



When I'd been planning out the evening you're never quite sure how it might pan out, but everything went brilliantly. Afterwards we got a bus home from Morningside no problem. 

I felt like I was in a dream walking Shona home along the burn and back to Firhill Crescent. She invited me in and we sat in watching the telly and talking with her mum 'n dad. I managed to converse okay with them, trying not to commit any faux-pas’ - I think I managed! 

They're dead nice and even thoughtfully went off to bed shortly before I left. I didn’t get home until 12.30 a.m. I got a row for being out late but I wasn't bothered! 

I'm off to bed now to dream about Shona. 

Thursday 8 November 2018

Comiston Walled Market Garden





I've attached some great photographs from a Ray Nimmo with the added bonus of a mystery/puzzle - trust it will generate much heat and even some light!

The photographs are from circa 1955/1956 and features Sandy, Amy Louisa and Carol Gay Nimmo harvesting their market garden. Ray is not quite sure if it was in Oxgangs, Comiston, etc. - my initial thought is either Comiston or Dreghorn? 


Here's some extracts from Ray's e mail: '...help me to locate the site of the walled garden that I spent the first five years of my living beside in a small bungalow.  It was owned by my parents at the time who tried unsuccessfully to run it as a 'market garden' and was sold on for development about 1959 (but did not make my parents wealthy!).  


Try as I might, I cannot pin its exact location down. 

My wife and I have recently come full circle back to Edinburgh after a life of moving all over the UK and now live in retirement in Greenbank.

I am trying to get a better grip on my family history and locating this old garden is part of that search. 

I attach the only photos that I have of the garden and as you can see it was quite substantial so it must have been associated with a large house back in the day (which may be the one at the back of the photo but I cannot recall it from my childhood).  

It was near Oxgangs Farm (I recall helping the farmer sow crops sitting on the back of his tractor's seed drill (strictly verboten now!) and watching the cows being milked). 

Also the Oxgangs shopping precinct was relatively nearby and in the process of being built. Any information or help that you might have would be much appreciated.'

  
My good friend, the inimitable Douglas Blades, may well have solved the mystery of the site of the old walled garden which was posted last week. If anyone wishes a high quality attachment of the two poor quality map images which I've posted below, please let me know and I'll e mail them to you.

Douglas Blades: 'I'm sure this was just along from the (Oxgangs) Broadway on land which I always thought belonged to Harwell’s (of Colinton Dairy etc. fame) and I also think it was abandoned before 1965.

I remember the bungalow lying abandoned and derelict after the folk moved away and exploring it.

Yes, there was a walled garden and small blocks of flats were built on it but I think the wall remains. 

Mr McCall, a Boroughmuir English teacher lived in one of the flats either just before or after he retired.

I also remember that potatoes still came up here and there is a field beside it.

We passed near it on our way to play at The Gully which was nearer Buckstone than Oxgangs and quite near to what used to be the Pentland Hills Hotel (I think!)

I'll have a look at old maps next week plus Google earth and see what I can find to jog my memory.'

Later

Douglas Blades: 'Look at the old map (1932) first. Top right, Comiston. Below that, walled garden with a well marked towards bottom left hand corner.





Bottom left hand corner, larger square marked just out with the walled garden is the cottage. Over to the left, Oxgangs, what is now the (Oxgangs) Avenue - looks like it is just a path. 



Now over to Google earth satellite picture. From the old map, the only thing still with us today is the house below the word Comiston and its boundaries. You can see the two blocks of flats which were built within the walled garden and you can sort of follow the old road between it and the newer Pentand Primary School. The older house in its own grounds on what is now Camus Avenue also appears to still exist. The tree lines don’t seem to have changed much and Pentland Drive seems to follow the old field boundary. As we passed over it from the Oxgangs side the first field had been a potato field in its final days as cultivated land but the second field was fallow and just grass as far as I can remember.

Looking at Google street view it appears the old boundary wall has now gone. When the two blocks of flats were built it was still there but breached in places.

I reckon the cottage would have been at the end of what is now Pentland School Lane or at the end of the block of garages beside the lane.'

Douglas Blades


When Ray first got in touch with me I suggested kicking off with an old Edinburgh & Leith Post Office Directory, but he didn't think his dad had a phone. Well, he did - thanks to David Shannon for tracking this down, which corroborates Douglas Blades' excellent detective work - 'Sandy Nimmo - Market Gardener!'

ps As Douglas says: 'It's quite remarkable what can be found out! All good fun!'
Isn't it great what can be done when people work together and share information!

I received this e mail this morning.

Hi Peter,

I stumbled onto your blog and saw a post about a disappeared walled garden at Comiston. I wondered if you've seen this Edinburgh Council website?


It shows maps and aerial photos from the last 160 years of any part of the city. I find the 1940s RAF shots very useful for research.


Comiston Walled Garden, 1946
I was able to find the missing bungalow and walled garden with this. Perhaps Raymond Nimmo, who asked where it was would like to see it? (Duly done - thanks Ken - may make for a good framed photograph!) The site of the walled garden is now Pentland Drive.

Kind regards.

Ken Watt